I am running win 98,apache 1.39 &php3. I cant get my browser Netscape working with php. I start the server open browser and then click on open page and all I see is the html no php. If I run php and speify the file from a dos prompt I see just the php.

Here's a few things to check but I don't know your full configuration. I run xitami server on win 98 and it was easy to set up. apache may be similar.
1. Make sure you set up you apache configuration under filters so that a file ending with php or php3 will be opened by php3.exe. Xitami is like this:
[filters]
php3 chp3php.exe
If you have everything set up correctly then
make sure your web files are under the servers webpages directories such as
c:apacherootpublic_html
check your configuration for where the server may find your default site. On xitami it's:
c:xitamiwebpages
anything outside it will not work.

2. You can't open your pages from the browser's file->open. Go to your address bar on your browser and type in: http://127.0.0.1/somepage.php3
If you are using this server locally that's your url. But somepage.php3 has to be in the webpages directory. Of course your server has to be started and running also.
Hope this makes sense. Good luck.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; About this file ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; This file controls many aspects of PHP's behavior. In order for PHP to
; read it, it must be named 'php.ini'. PHP looks for it in the current
; working directory, in the path designated by the environment variable
; PHPRC, and in the path that was defined in compile time (in that order).
; Under Windows, the compile-time path is the Windows directory. The
; path in which the php.ini file is looked for can be overriden using
; the -c argument in command line mode.
;
; The syntax of the file is extremely simple. Whitespace and Lines
; beginning with a semicolon are silently ignored (as you probably guessed).
; Section headers (e.g. [Foo]) are also silently ignored, even though
; they might mean something in the future.
;
; Directives are specified using the following syntax:
; directive = value
; Directive names are *case sensitive* - foo=bar is different from FOO=bar.
;
; The value can be a string, a number, a PHP constant (e.g. E_ALL or M_PI), one
; of the INI constants (On, Off, True, False, Yes, No and None) or an expression
; (e.g. E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE), or a quoted string ("foo").
;
; Expressions in the INI file are limited to bitwise operators and parentheses:
; | bitwise OR
; & bitwise AND
; ~ bitwise NOT
; ! boolean NOT
;
; Boolean flags can be turned on using the values 1, On, True or Yes.
; They can be turned off using the values 0, Off, False or No.
;
; An empty string can be denoted by simply not writing anything after the equal
; sign, or by using the None keyword:
;
; foo = ; sets foo to an empty string
; foo = none ; sets foo to an empty string
; foo = "none" ; sets foo to the string 'none'
;
; If you use constants in your value, and these constants belong to a dynamically
; loaded extension (either a PHP extension or a Zend extension), you may only
; use these constants *after* the line that loads the extension.
;
; All the values in the php.ini-dist file correspond to the builtin
; defaults (that is, if no php.ini is used, or if you delete these lines,
; the builtin defaults will be identical).

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Language Options ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

engine = On ; Enable the PHP scripting language engine under Apache
short_open_tag = On ; allow the <? tag. otherwise, only <?php and <script> tags are recognized.
asp_tags = Off ; allow ASP-style <% %> tags
precision = 14 ; number of significant digits displayed in floating point numbers
y2k_compliance = Off ; whether to be year 2000 compliant (will cause problems with non y2k compliant browsers)
output_buffering = Off ; Output buffering allows you to send header lines (including cookies)
; even after you send body content, in the price of slowing PHP's
; output layer a bit.
; You can enable output buffering by in runtime by calling the output
; buffering functions, or enable output buffering for all files
; by setting this directive to On.
implicit_flush = Off ; Implicit flush tells PHP to tell the output layer to flush itself
; automatically after every output block. This is equivalent to
; calling the PHP function flush() after each and every call to print()
; or echo() and each and every HTML block.
; Turning this option on has serious performance implications, and
; is generally recommended for debugging purposes only.
allow_call_time_pass_reference = On ; whether to enable the ability to force arguments to be
; passed by reference at function-call time. This method
; is deprecated, and is likely to be unsupported in future
; versions of PHP/Zend. The encouraged method of specifying
; which arguments should be passed by reference is in the
; function declaration. You're encouraged to try and
; turn this option Off, and make sure your scripts work
; properly with it, to ensure they will work with future
; versions of the language (you will receive a warning
; each time you use this feature, and the argument will
; be passed by value instead of by reference).

; Safe Mode
safe_mode = Off
safe_mode_exec_dir =
safe_mode_allowed_env_vars = PHP_ ; Setting certain environment variables
; may be a potential security breach.
; This directive contains a comma-delimited
; list of prefixes. In Safe Mode, the
; user may only alter environment
; variables whose names begin with the
; prefixes supplied here.
; By default, users will only be able
; to set environment variables that begin
; with PHP_ (e.g. PHP_FOO=BAR).
; Note: If this directive is empty, PHP
; will let the user modify ANY environment
; variable!
safe_mode_protected_env_vars = LD_LIBRARY_PATH ; This directive contains a comma-
; delimited list of environment variables,
; that the end user won't be able to
; change using putenv().
; These variables will be protected
; even if safe_mode_allowed_env_vars is
; set to allow to change them.

disable_functions = ; This directive allows you to disable certain
; functions for security reasons. It receives
; a comma separated list of function names.
; This directive is *NOT* affected by whether
; Safe Mode is turned on or off.

; Misc
expose_php = On ; Decides whether PHP may expose the fact that it is installed on the
; server (e.g., by adding its signature to the Web server header).
; It is no security threat in any way, but it makes it possible
; to determine whether you use PHP on your server or not.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Data Handling ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
variables_order = "EGPCS" ; This directive describes the order in which PHP registers
; GET, POST, Cookie, Environment and Built-in variables (G, P,
; C, E & S respectively, often referred to as EGPCS or GPC).
; Registration is done from left to right, newer values override
; older values.
register_globals = On ; Whether or not to register the EGPCS variables as global
; variables. You may want to turn this off if you don't want
; to clutter your scripts' global scope with user data. This makes
; most sense when coupled with track_vars - in which case you can
; access all of the GPC variables through the $HTTP_*_VARS[],
; variables.
register_argc_argv = On ; This directive tells PHP whether to declare the argv&argc
; variables (that would contain the GET information). If you
; don't use these variables, you should turn it off for
; increased performance
track_vars = On ; enable the $HTTP_*_VARS[] arrays, where * is one of
; ENV, POST, GET, COOKIE or SERVER.
gpc_order = "GPC" ; This directive is deprecated. Use variables_order instead.

; As of 4.0b4, PHP always outputs a character encoding by default in
; the Content-type: header. To disable sending of the charset, simply
; set it to be empty.
; PHP's built-in default is text/html
default_mimetype = "text/html"
;default_charset = "iso-8859-1"

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Paths and Directories ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
include_path = ; UNIX: "/path1:/path2" Windows: "path1;path2"
doc_root =c:apachehtdocs ; the root of the php pages, used only if nonempty
user_dir = ; the directory under which php opens the script using /~username, used only if nonempty
;upload_tmp_dir = ; temporary directory for HTTP uploaded files (will use system default if not specified)
upload_max_filesize = 2097152 ; 2 Meg default limit on file uploads
extension_dir =./c:apachecgi-bin ; directory in which the loadable extensions (modules) reside
enable_dl = On ; Whether or not to enable the dl() function.
; The dl() function does NOT properly work in multithreaded
; servers, such as IIS or Zeus, and is automatically disabled
; on them.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Dynamic Extensions ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; if you wish to have an extension loaded automaticly, use the
; following syntax: extension=modulename.extension
; for example, on windows,
; extension=msql.dll
; or under UNIX,
; extension=msql.so
; Note that it should be the name of the module only, no directory information
; needs to go here. Specify the location of the extension with the extension_dir directive above.

[Syslog]
define_syslog_variables = Off ; Whether or not to define the various syslog variables,
; e.g. $LOG_PID, $LOG_CRON, etc. Turning it off is a
; good idea performance-wise. In runtime, you can define
; these variables by calling define_syslog_variables()

[Logging]
; These configuration directives are used by the example logging mechanism.
; See examples/README.logging for more explanation.
;logging.method = db
;logging.directory = /path/to/log/directory

[Assertion]
;assert.active = On ; assert(expr); active by default
;assert.warning = On ; issue a PHP warning for each failed assertion.
;assert.bail = Off ; don't bail out by default.
;assert.callback = 0 ; user-function to be called if an assertion fails.
;assert.quiet_eval = 0 ; eval the expression with current error_reporting(). set to true if you want error_reporting(0) around the eval().